BMV won't offer to take you off organ-donor list

Wednesday

Oct 9, 2013 at 12:01 AMOct 9, 2013 at 10:31 AM

In an effort to stop people from pulling their names off the organ-donor registry, the state will no longer ask whether they want to remain a donor when they renew their driver's licenses or state ID cards.

Rick Rouan, The Columbus Dispatch

In an effort to stop people from pulling their names off the organ-donor registry, the state will no longer ask whether they want to remain a donor when they renew their driver’s licenses or state ID cards.

An amendment tacked onto the state budget that Gov. John Kasich signed in June instructs Bureau of Motor Vehicles workers not to mention organ donation to those already on the state registry. Those who are not will continue to be asked to register. Donors still can remove themselves from the list by requesting a status change when they renew their licenses or by going to the BMV website, www.bmv.ohio.gov.

State Rep. Cheryl Grossman, a Grove City Republican, said she pushed for the amendment this summer to reduce the number of questions asked at the BMV counter and to help increase the number of registered organ donors.

As of Aug. 30, 5.24 million Ohioans were registered organ donors, up from 5.19 million a year ago.

In the past year, 233,103 names were added to the registry and 69,302 were removed, said Marilyn Pongonis, spokeswoman for Lifeline of Ohio, which maintains Ohio’s registry.

Pongonis said Lifeline asked for the change because it wants donors to seek more information before taking themselves off the registry. Lifeline workers have seen older donors pull out because they thought medical conditions or illnesses would disqualify them from donating. That’s not the case.

“Our real hope is that people won’t pull themselves out without making an informed decision,” she said.

Ohio joins nine other states that do not ask donors whether they want to stay on the registry.

Nationwide, about 120,000 people are waiting for organ transplants, Pongonis said, and registries need to grow if they hope to dent that figure.

About 1 percent of all deaths in Ohio occur while a person is on ventilator support, which is required for harvesting organs, she said.

About 59 percent of Ohio adults were registered donors last year. Only California has more names on its registry, but the proportion of adults who are registered donors is higher in 17 states, according to a report from the nonprofit advocate Donate Life America.

About 61 percent of the 297 Ohioans who donated their organs last year were listed on the state registry, Pongonis said.

“People are always shocked by that number, that there’s such a small number of people who go on to be organ donors.”